Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

st-shot What a supreme act of hubris this idea turned out to be. A modern day Black Wizard of Oz shot in the hood ( mostly warehouses and mall parking lots ) with a Dorothy ( Diana Ross) in her mid 30s and with distinguished Gotham director Sidney Lumet at the helm the concept had an edge but the follow through is a complete swing and a miss. Shy and withdrawn Harlem denizen Dorothy rushes out into a snowstorm looking for her dog and soon finds herself disoriented and no longer in The Big Apple or Kansas but a series of drab caverness warehouses and parking lots paralleling the Judy Garland scenario played out every year on television, making new friends and heading for the Emerald City in search of The Wiz. It is one bad trip. With its superstar line-up of Ross, Richard Pryor and Michael Jackson one might think it impossible a musical comedy would be totally drained of any entertainment value but The Wiz surely is. Ross puts the final nail in her movie career (the first being Mahogony) as she screeches and squeals through her performance of an adult playing an adult as a child. Pryor brings nothing special to the dithering role of The Wiz while Jackson on the verge of super stardom is only allowed brief glimpses to display it. Lumet for his part seems content to haphazardly film huge chorus scenes under bad lighting to unmemorable music while putting the flying monkeys on motorcycles to harass Dorothy and pals in empty parking garages. His attention to keeping it real simply zaps the film of its joy and replaces it with an unrelenting shrillness from end to end. The Wiz is an unmitigated disaster. Considering the talent behind it, as failed a musical as you could ask for.

WakenPayne Being a fan of the original Wizard Of Oz book I wanted to watch this for a bad movie. To say I succeeded is an understatement. This movie truly is terrible.For starters the premise is completely pointless. It's about as pointless as the Death at a Funeral remake released 3 years ago (I hope people still remember that). Not only that but at least that some bad movies have the common decency to be short when this is over 2 hours.There are many things in this movie that I find very irrelevant to the plot. For example, once they get into Emerald City they sing praises about the colour green, After that the Wizard wants Emerald City to be red, then they sing praises about the colour red, then the exact same thing happens only this time for gold. You really are thinking to yourself what the hell it has anything to do with what's going on.The changes that they made were for the worst in this movie. For example the deadly poppy field that made Dorothy, Toto and the lion sleep (I'm following the book not the '39 movie) is replaced in this with hookers with a poppy somewhere on their red costumes. Which is a terrible idea.Some of the dialogue is embarrassing to hear, the lines are just terrible. Not only that but Dorothy is hopelessly miscast. Sometimes Toto isn't even there, he is a vital character in the story (yes - despite him being a dog) and in some places he is just gone.If you remotely liked the book and watched it with other people like I did, you'll be reassuring them that this is nothing like the book and it is actually a good read. Whereas this is just painful to sit through.

Gavin Cresswell (gavin-thelordofthefu-48-460297) I've never heard of this film before or the musical this was based on, but when I got on to Youtube and searched for The Wiz, I listened to the songs from the movie and I think that they're pretty good and the lyrics were decent and memorable too. So, when I watched the whole movie, I had little low expectations to whether or not it's going to be good since I loved the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. Well, let's just say that in terms of songs and dance sequences, I think that this is a guilty pleasure for me despite it's negative reviews and a personally underrated film at that.First, let me get to the cons. I've heard that the screenplay was written by Joel Schumacher, the person who would later direct Batman Forever and Batman & Robin (which is by far the most terrible superhero movie in the history of mankind although not the worst), so I will admit that his screen writing seemed phoned in.The story's pretty good, but it had some unnecessary changes and scenes that go completely nowhere (changing the farm in the play where Dorothy lives to New York City and the scene where Dorothy, Tinman, Scarecrow, and Lion encounter some monsters in the subways were absolutely pointless). Also, I had mixed feelings for Diana Ross as the lead role. Her singing voice is good, but failed to capture the innocence of Judy Garland and came across as somewhat whiny. Plus she was also old for the role. Even Richard Pryor as the Wiz was disappointing. He was only using that role as a comedy skit and boy was it lame. The pacing is a combination of slow and rushed with the ending as the worst part.There are, however, some good things that save this movie. Michael Jackson did great as the Scarecrow and captured the energy and innocence very well. Nipsy Russell and Ted Ross did great as the Tinman & the Lion and Lena Horne also did great as the lovely Glinda. Mable King is a great Villianess and her song "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" was nicely rendered, though the way she died felt too obvious. Some of the actors did great with their performances. The sets, although cheap, are beautiful and expensive-looking and the costumes for the Scarecrow and other characters are great, but the costumes on the Winkies are kind of lame. I mean, motorcycle Winkies? Come on! Anyway, it had some decent dialog (Not great, but good), but the strongest aspect goes to the songs. They're great and memorable with "Ease On Down The Road" as the best and catchiest.Overall, I understand the criticism this movie had and tanked at the box office and yet the soundtrack were sold millions to other people. I'll admit that it did had some problems, but I think that this is an underrated musical film. Not the greatest film out there, but I've seen much worse movies. The Wiz is a flawed, but underrated musical that is worth-watching to die-hard fans of the play.

austinlovesjapan This is one heck of an underrated movie. It has sadly been raped by critics, anime fans, and racists. I love this movie and is not as bad as you may think. It has one of the best music scores of all time. It ending is very emotional. When You Believe is one of the most emotional songs ever. Michael Jackson's performance is one of the best. This "Diana Ross was too old to play Dorothy" is totally false. This was the way it was intended. It was intended for Dorothy to be a 24 year old teacher. This movie is just as good as the Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz and the Broadway play and It was not a commercial flop, that is just false information from your mind. This movie is not a flop and will be remembered and acclaimed in the future. I highly recomendded it